Production is under way on Lithuanian director Arturas Jevdokimovas’ See What I Say, an 82-minute hybrid documentary connecting deaf communities in Bologna, Vilnius and Kyiv. Scheduled for completion in 2028, the Lithuanian-Italian-Ukrainian co-production is being developed in four distinct versions: festival (82 minutes), television (52 minutes), VR/XR education (15 minutes) and museum installations (6×10 minutes).

Rather than explaining sign language from a hearing perspective, the project aims to make deaf visual language the organising grammar of the film. Its three focal points are bars in the respective cities: Bologna’s L’Altro Spazio, a well-established meeting place for deaf and hearing customers; Elektrit in Vilnius; and Negroni in Kyiv. While no equivalent deaf bar previously existed in Lithuania or Ukraine, the Bologna venue has been operating for more than a decade.

On designated “deaf days”, a deaf bartender works behind the counter, and hearing customers are encouraged to learn basic signs in order to communicate. Silent live images from the other two bars are transmitted onto screens ordinarily used for sports, creating a visual connection between communities that share no universal sign language. Lithuanian, Italian and Ukrainian sign languages are no more mutually intelligible by default than their spoken counterparts, making communication a continuous process of negotiation.

The device also reverses the conventional understanding of integration: deaf people are not required to adapt to the hearing world; instead, hearing visitors find themselves unable to understand unless they learn a different language.

The documentary follows its characters beyond the bars and into their homes, relationships and working lives. Among its central figures is Alex, a 34-year-old Ukrainian who fled the war and initially found himself homeless in Bologna, documenting that period on his phone. He eventually found work at L’Altro Spazio but remains separated from his elderly mother, who refuses to leave the bombardment zone in Ukraine.

In Vilnius, 30-year-old photographer and poet Arnas grew up with deaf parents and has spent much of his life interpreting between deaf and hearing environments. As his own hearing deteriorates, he finds himself caught between two communities while working as a bartender at Elektrit and taking part in a deaf theatre project. Arnas is also serving as a co-cinematographer, bringing his sensitivity to peripheral movement and micro-gestures to the film’s visual construction.

The film’s third bartender, at Negroni in Kyiv, has not yet been cast. The production is searching through personal networks, which is the only way to build the trust the role demands in a city under constant bombardment. When air-raid sirens sound, he will become aware of them differently from his customers: through a vibration in his pocket or a flash on his screen. He is not the last to know; he knows differently.

The characters are being given cameras to record the aspects of their lives that they consider significant. The production is also employing consumer-grade 360-degree cameras alongside an Insta360 Titan 11K system. Split-screen compositions will allow simultaneous signed conversations to remain visible, while the sound design will approach sound through vibration, bass frequencies and spatial resonance, rather than simply reproducing silence.

See What I Say is being produced by Ringailė Leščinskienė for Lithuania’s Zero Copy Reel, and co-produced by Giusi Santoro for Italy’s POPCult and Ivanna Khitsinska for Ukraine’s WAYA Production. The cinematography team includes Eitvydas Doškus, Pasquale Greco and Arnas Dambrauskas.

The project has a total budget of €452,000. To date, it has secured €228,854, equivalent to approximately 50.6% of the total. Its backers include the Lithuanian Film Centre, which awarded the project €121,800 in development and production funding; the Emilia-Romagna Film Commission, through which it received €45,154 from the region’s production-support scheme; the Vilnius Film Office Municipality Production Grant, which awarded €22,500; and Lithuanian national broadcaster LRT, which contributed €7,000. The secured financing also includes in-kind contributions from Zero Copy Reel (€2,320), POPCult Italy (€14,040), WAYA Production Ukraine (€14,040) and Google Cloud Support (€2,000).

During development, See What I Say took part in EsoDoc’25 and was selected for Baltic Sea Docs 2026. It will next be presented at the 2026 Nordisk Panorama Forum, while Leščinskienė is also taking part in Ji.hlava’s Emerging Producers 2026 (see the interview) and the CIRCLE Digital Empowerment Programme 2026.